Is this the Canada we want?

The Harper government is planning a Taj Mahal complex for the Defense Department's spies, complete with a hockey rink, basketball and volleyball courts and a bank in a secure facility on Ogilvie Road, says the head of the department's largest union.

While the original Taj Mahal was build as a symbol of eternal love,  Harper’s is more of a big fuck-you to Canadians.

We are subject to the dire warnings of the ever frowning Finance Minister, Deficit Jim, day after day.  You know, the guy who gave Canada the biggest deficit in Canadian history.  As Flaherty warns us faceless Canadians that we need to tighten our belts, it being our duty and all, and as Stockwell (I-pinned-a-Loonie-on-my-lapel-to-show-my-respect-for-taxpayers) Day announces that DND’s budget must be cut by 1 billion, the very same harper government decides to build this monstrous testament to the crazy kill-em-all-let-god-sort-em-out path he wants to take Canada down.

The right calls lefties crazy conspiracy theorists, but here’s their Great Leader elevating spies to that elite level he constantly spits vitriol at and using much needed tax dollars to do it as he cuts, slashes, butchers the rest of the public service and social programs for Canadians.

Fuck human rights, fuck the poor, fuck minorities, women, aboriginals.  And in particular, fuck free speech.  It will just get in the way of the spies work.

As appalling as the utter hypocrisy of spending money on a lavish centre for spies - complete with a sports complex, a hockey rink with a zambone, volley ball courts, walking trails, and of yes, a large fireplace, what such spending indicates is far worse.

Harper cut daycare.  Bashed the hell out of it.  Tried to make it sound anti-democratic by labeling it as a government nanny.  But when it comes to spies, publicly funded daycare is just okey-dokey fine.  And those elitists who ride bikes?  Doesn’t apply to spies.  Lots of bike racks for them planned.

And that lazy, over-paid public service really shouldn’t have low rate parking.  Hell no, they should pay full price!  Unless you’re a spy in training, that is, then it’s free.

So what is harper telling us here.  He’s saying that there are two types of Canadians - the ones he decides deserve extra special treatment, and the rest of us who just need to tighten our belts, shut the fuck up, pay our taxes, and never, ever criticize his rule or question how our tax dollars are spent.

That harper decides to pamper this particular group with our tax dollars at a time when all departments are being hit with major cuts tells us what he thinks is important.  Not creating jobs, not fighting poverty, not education, not the arts which are the lifeblood of a nation, not aid, not women, not children...

No, what’s important to him is investing more money into paranoia.  Investing into information gathering, population control, and mostly, spreading fear so that we taxpayers are more easy to control and bleed for every last dollar.

Also, MacKay has noted that the government would move forward with the project through a public-private partnership but MacLennan said it is unclear what role private firms will play.  Plenary did not respond to a request for comment. MacKay's office referred questions to CSE, which did not respond...MacLennan questioned the wisdom of employees of a private corporation having access to CSE buildings.

Yeah, I question that wisdom as well, and not being able to get CSE to respond to questions makes me more than a little twitchy.  Are we going to rent out spy services to private companies now?

This obscenity of harper’s has to be stopped, and we, those faceless Canadians he has such contempt for are the only ones who can do it.

We need to become far, far more vocal in pointing out where he’s taking Canada, and we need to put a hell of a lot more pressure on all other parties to take this son-of-a-bitch down before he makes Canada a target for hatred and terrorism by his policies, before he guts our laws and rights and social programs so badly that it will take decades to recover, and before he gets such a strangle-hold on our right to protest that we who protest will be the ones filling his new prisons.

The man is insane.  His idea of reality is so out there, so cold-war 50s that it’s difficult for normal people to grasp how dangerous he is. 

If you need anything more to convince you: he’s building this huge spy centre on Ogilvie Road???!!

Intimidation at DND?

Defence Department staff have been warned against using government computers to sift through secret documents released by WikiLeaks.  An email dubbed "Wikileaks Notice" in the subject line says military computers are "not to be used to visit the Wikileaks (sic) site or any other websites containing such information."

OK, no big deal.  All federal departments have restrictions, which vary from one to another.  But DND doesn’t stop with that warning, and their planned procedures and justifications are bizarre.

Canadian Forces IT staff "may monitor attempts to view this site's material and will report attempts to the affected chains of command," it adds.

But –

The website has not been blocked by the Defence Department and employees have not been directed to not talk about the documents, MacLean added.

Why not block it if they seriously don’t want staff going there, especially if the department has legitimate IT security concerns.  Would save IT hours of monitoring – unless they want to tag people who are interested in Wikileaks.

DND’s justification for not allowing staff to visit Wikileaks -

The department fears accessing the site could expose government computers to "malicious search engine poisoning attacks" and that third parties might "collect and exploit visitor data or deliver malicious software through downloaded files."

Again, that doesn’t sound unreasonable to a layperson like me until we find out that similar directives do not appear to be applied to all public servants or departments. If there was indeed a problem with Wikileaks connected to viruses or “poisoning attacks,” it’s very likely all federal departments would be taking measures to protect their systems.

More weirdness -

As some of the information may be classified, downloading it onto or viewing it from government computers could also be a breach of security policy, it says.

But if it’s available for anyone to view and bits and pieces keep appearing in the media, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

DND doesn’t stop at regulating staff while they are functioning as employees, either -

Staff were also warned to consider the similar risk of contamination to personal computers, smart phones and flash drives that access the site.

And the weirdness just goes on -

While they're not forbidden from accessing the material on their own time from home, MacLean said staff are discouraged from seeking out their own files.

And why would that be?  Why the threat note of warning not to seek out their own files?